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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22740316">Calling Card</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Engineer104/pseuds/Engineer104'>Engineer104</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>I Would Write 500 Words (and I Would Write 500 More) [12]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Assassins &amp; Hitmen, Blood and Injury, F/M, Kinda, Pining, mind warnings, such sad much tears</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 19:00:57</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,205</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22740316</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Engineer104/pseuds/Engineer104</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Felix arrives at his and Annette’s usual meeting place, but they won’t have the opportunity to discuss his next job.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Annette Fantine Dominic/Felix Hugo Fraldarius</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>I Would Write 500 Words (and I Would Write 500 More) [12]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1591699</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Those Who Drabble in the Dark</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Calling Card</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>another one for that “missed chances” sad V Day prompt for the Discord. i’ve been wanting to write an AU like this for a while (though perhaps not with this fic’s...conclusion) so i may revisit it someday! as like an AU of an AU. that ends happy...ish or something</p>
<p>ANYWAY please note the warning (i have not written a Major Character Death fic in a while rip) and that there is not a happy ending. sorry ;_;</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Felix slinks up the stairs to their usual room, his heart racing with the sort of anticipation he never experiences before a challenging kill. His finger runs along the smooth surface of the key card the clerk downstairs gave him. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Down the richly carpeted halls Felix travels. He barely notes the rooms on either side except to scan the numbers on their placards and dismiss them, intent on his own destination. Other patrons pass him by wearing the bath robes emblazoned with the hotel logo and carrying buckets for ice, but Felix ignores their halfhearted greetings to brush past them. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s late, and Annette won’t appreciate that. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He pauses outside the correct door - room 401, selected for the date they met - and listens. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>No sound escapes from within, not like one of their first meetings when he overheard her singing a tune she made up for herself. The memory of her ignoring his knock, of the door unlocking with a click and swinging open only for her to spin around and spot him and her cheeks to flush a deep red before she stuttered, “</span>
  <em>
    <span>F-Felix! Can’t you knock?”</span>
  </em>
  <span>, fills him with warmth and brings a slight smile to his face. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“I did,” </span>
  </em>
  <span>he replied. </span>
  <em>
    <span>“It’s not my fault you didn’t hear.”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“Then you should’ve knocked louder!” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Annette practically screeched, almost puffing up like an indignant kitten (but twice as cute, he remembers thinking even then before dismissing the thought). </span>
  <em>
    <span>“Unlike you, I sleep here! What if I’d been in the middle of changing?”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And then Felix decided it would be in his best interest to change the topic to matters of business, his whole reason for meeting with her. He wouldn’t needle her about her strange lyrics - </span>
  <em>
    <span>what’s that about the ‘wonders of room service’?</span>
  </em>
  <span> - and his thoughts would not wander beyond the information she passed him about his next contract. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(There would be time for distraction later, when Annette doesn’t hear him knock </span>
  <em>
    <span>again</span>
  </em>
  <span> and he does walk in on her half-dressed, catching a glimpse of a freckled shoulder and left wondering if the livid red blush coloring her collarbone spreads further. His own face would be hot as he averts his eyes and stammers an apology while she curses him and calls him names from inside the bathroom after she slams the door shut.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But he remembers her song (though she demanded he forget what he heard and apologized for being “unprofessional”) and wonders if he’ll ever work up the courage to ask to hear it again. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He works a high-stress and dangerous job, he can remind Annette. Her songs help him relax enough he won’t get caught up in his worst memories or fears. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He can even tell her he wishes they could see each other beyond the scope of their work, beyond these clandestine meetings at a dingy downtown hotel with its threadbare robes and chipped bathroom tile and suspicious stains on the carpet. He wants to know more about her and less about the next man or woman he’s being paid to kill, listen to her voice raised in song or giggling through a silly story rather than passing him information. And - most baffling of all - he wants to hold her hand for longer than it takes to exchange the most perfunctory of handshakes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(It doesn’t help he always meets her in the privacy of a small hotel room.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Maybe it will be tonight Felix tells her...something. He always dismissed his feelings before; they were unnecessary, superfluous, and though despite their rough start Annette looks at him with something akin to warmth in those blue eyes he can never meet for long, he fears his hands are too bloody and his history too shadowed for someone like her. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Felix’s chest tightens, and a bitter taste coats his tongue. He can imagine it now, how her eyes would widen in apology before she opens her mouth for one, how she may even wonder </span>
  <em>
    <span>why me? </span>
  </em>
  <span>before speedily delivering the details of his next assignment and fleeing him without a backwards glance. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(He never has worked up the courage to wonder why she bothers spending the nights here. Has she no home to return to?)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>At least she wouldn’t be angry with him...he thinks. Maybe putting into speech the feelings he holds back will finally calm the storm swirling through his mind, the one she unleashed. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(Or it will make it worse.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Perhaps he should’ve taken Sylvain’s advice and brought flowers...</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But he can’t think of it now. He’s left Annette waiting for long enough, and he’d rather spare himself a spiel on punctuality. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Felix raises his fist and knocks once, twice, three times. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He breathes unsteadily while he waits for her to call from within, but after shifting his feet and counting his own rapid heartbeats, he hears nothing. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>An unwitting smile pushes at his lips. Is she in her own world?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He tries knocking again. A second attempt usually gets her attention, but she still doesn’t reply. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Felix stares at the door, running his finger along the hard edge of the key card. If she hasn’t heard him a second time, perhaps she’s in the bathroom or wearing those giant headphones he warned her are a hazard. That’s all, he tells himself; there’s no use fretting, and if she </span>
  <em>
    <span>is</span>
  </em>
  <span> in the bathroom and not singing she won’t yell at him for his intrusion. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(Probably.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His hand shakes when he inserts the key into the lock. It clicks and flashes green, and Felix turns the knob and pushes the door open.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He steps into an empty room, the dusty carpet absorbing the sound of his footsteps as he flicks a lightswitch at random. A weak lamp between the two double beds casts deep shadows when they illuminate the room, but it’s bright enough he spots her laptop on the small desk, her duffle bag full of any equipment she carries for him on the vanity, and a backpack with clothes spilling out of it on the chair. Two paper cups and a pastry box bearing the logo of her favorite bakery sit beside her laptop. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Felix picks up one of the cups and squints into the hole in the plastic lid. Black coffee, he notes, though already cooled. </span>
  <em>
    <span>For me?</span>
  </em>
  <span> he wonders, because he knows how she hates coffee. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Maybe if a chill of foreboding wasn’t trickling down his spine he might’ve been endeared that she bought him a drink. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Felix’s spine stiffens the longer he surveys the empty room. “Annette?” he calls. He reaches into his jacket, gripping the handle of the gun he always carries as he creeps towards the bathroom. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Light spills out under the door. Felix knocks, trying to ignore his heart jumping into his throat and pounding ever faster with every millisecond he doesn’t hear her voice. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I-I’m coming in!” he warns her. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His footsteps echo when he steps onto the tile, and Felix - indomitable contract killer known for ignoring pleas for mercy and delivering a quick, efficient death - falls to his knees. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No, no, no…” With an awful pressure on his chest making it almost impossible to breathe, Felix stumbles to the bathtub. He shoves the shower curtain - its hem stained with blood - out of the way and jumps in. “Annette,” he breathes, voice rasping as he straddles her limp body. He moves automatically, fingers searching, heedless of the blood that oozes sluggishly from the gaping wound on her neck. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He expects nothing, but the disappointment still crushes him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her blue eyes, always so full of life and whatever emotion she feels in the moment, gaze up at him blankly, judgmentally, scolding him for being even a moment too late to their meeting. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Felix knows death so intimately, but he can’t dismiss the denial, that this is some prank of hers and she’ll smile and laugh and smear the red makeup off her neck and chide him for falling for it and—</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m so…” He chokes on the words, on a sudden wash of awful, familiar grief; how pathetic is he that he can’t even make himself apologize to someone who deserves it? </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His eyes burn, but he isn’t crying (it’s only a matter of time). He cups her face, his stomach turning at how cool her soft skin is, and brushes his lips across her forehead. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He can’t breathe for the metallic stench filling his nose.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He nearly trips climbing out of the tub and bolts from the bathroom, his heart pounding as he berates himself for his own cowardice. He could’ve at least closed her eyes, could’ve—</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A flash of white on the bed catches his eye:  a neatly folded piece of paper sitting under a business card. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her loopy handwriting spells out his name in blue ink. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Felix unfolds the letter. With every word he reads, it becomes more difficult to hold the emotions at bay.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Dear Felix,</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>You might be wondering why I’ve handed you a letter, and you might be thinking why I had to do it as you were leaving for the night, and the simple reason is I’m...well, I have no </span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span>real</span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span> intention of giving this to you. I’m just writing this to get it off my chest and maybe finally work up the courage to tell you something I’ve been dying to tell you for weeks now. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <strike><em><span>I love</span></em> <em><span>I don’t want our</span></em></strike>
  <em>
    <span> OKAY here it is:  you know how just a month ago I asked you why you never spend the night even though we wouldn’t have to share a bed and I swore I wasn’t planning on murdering you in your sleep (though I do have to admit I HAVE considered that once for other reasons; be glad I don’t know where you actually sleep)? Well I...asked that because I couldn’t think of a not-weird excuse to just ask you to spend the night because I...like spending time with you? Is that weird? Our relationship is professional and I’ve always had trouble figuring out what you’re feeling and thinking but you smile more than you used to and that’s made ME smile more than I did and even if you’re annoyingly distracting even when you’re not with me and we try (very hard) to stick to business during our meetings (and talking about business can be such a downer sometimes) I’ve felt so much happier spending these few hours with you every week than I have in a long time. (Except that night I told you about my dad. That was awful, though I appreciated your attempts to comfort me by insulting my dad and the fact you brought me half a carrot cake next time we met...I ate every bit, even though I don’t like walnuts.) </span>
  </em>
  <strike>
    <em>
      <span>So uh yeah that weird question was really just an awful way to ask if you’d be interested in sleeping with me! Wait</span>
    </em>
  </strike>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I swear I have a point here...it’s just my habit of talking too much and. Felix, I know you said once your work doesn’t allow much room for friends (“just enemies” </span>
  </em>
  <strike>
    <em>
      <span>why are you like this</span>
    </em>
  </strike>
  <em>
    <span>) but I...really like you. I might even love you, I don’t know (forget that time I swore I’d hate you for the rest of my life). And if it helps we’re kind of both criminals, you know? I think we have more in common than we have different, so if you don’t feel the same </span>
  </em>
  <strike>
    <em>
      <span>why would you</span>
    </em>
  </strike>
  <em>
    <span> can I at least call you my friend?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <strike>
    <em>
      <span>Love</span>
    </em>
  </strike>
  <em>
    <span> Love,</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Annette</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>P.S. In writing this letter I have decided I do in fact love you, Felix. I don’t care how messy and complicated and muddled it’ll make our professional relationship and whatever else, I AM going to tell you. To your face. Maybe if (BIG “if”) you feel the same I will even kiss you. (You will never read this.)</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Felix buries his damp face in his elbow to stifle a sob, her name and her voice - he heard it so clearly in every written word - a terrible, repetitive refrain in his head. What good does it serve to have his earlier and useless doubts laid to rest when new ones take root?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Why wasn’t I here earlier? Why did we never meet somewhere else? Why wasn’t I more careful?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Why Annette?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He folds the letter and slips it into his pocket as a blood-boiling anger grips him. Why did this happen? </span>
  <em>
    <span>How could he have let this happen?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And that’s when he remembers he didn’t find the letter alone. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The business card sits on the carpet at his feet, a shining design of a violet snake, coiled up and poised to strike, its only embellishment. He picks it up, examining it while suspicion prickles at him, his hand curled into a fist and itching for a weapon, for a fight, for someone to shoot and make bleed like she does, when he finds the bloody thumbprint on the back. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He recognizes their calling card, their warning. He’s targeted many of their members with Annette’s help. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Catch us if you can, </span>
  </em>
  <span>the bloody thumbprint challenges. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Find us if you dare.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Felix has never been one to back down from a challenge. </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Felix: *criticizes Dimitri for being obsessed with avenging the dead*<br/>Also Felix (in VW): Maybe we can finally lay Dimitri to rest <br/>Me: YOU’RE A STUPID HYPOCRITE STOP THAT</p>
<p>anyway...thoughts? <s>maybe one day i will write a slightly happier and less deadly version of this fic who can really say what the future holds</s></p>
<p>Fun fact: this is the rare fic with a working title i actually kept</p>
<p>(let’s not mention the fact i wrote two felannie fics for the same prompt...)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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